This is why she wasn’t at the game. She was using the time I was away to slip out like a goddamn thief in the night. And she is a thief, because when she goes, she’ll take my heart away with her. No ransom. No demands.
What I want to know is why.
My gaze darts over to the closet. Bracing myself, I step inside, looking around the empty space. Most of her stuff is packed away. A couple sweaters remain on hangers. A few shoes litter the floor. And two small boxes.
I go still. The rotten energy floating off them is palpable. I can practically taste it on my tongue. These are what Jake wants me to find. With a grimace, I bring them out to her bedroom, dropping them on the bed. I open the flaps of the first box and find a bunch of shredded papers inside. There’s a note on top as well, but it’s written in a tight, slanted cursive handwriting.
I open the other box. Looking inside, I instantly want to feel sick. It’s a box of photos. Horrible, grainy, exposing photos of Tess and me. Every moment we’ve shared has been captured and documented. I get to the stack of kitchen photos and curse, dropping them back into the box as if they burned me.
Someone’s been watching us for weeks. Someone violated us, violated Tess. And I didn’t protect her. In my defense, I didn’t fucking know.
Did she know?
This is the big wall I’ve felt standing between us. That last barrier she just couldn’t get over. We’re the extrovert and the introvert. The doer and the thinker. The Gemini and the Virgo. We shouldn’t work on paper, but we do. We’re so damn happy together. And we’re good for each other. All I want is to get closer, and yet she’s constantly pushing me away. I thought it was her. I thought it was some hang-up she has about commitment and trust. And I think all of that is still true. But now I’m holding the proof of something more. She’s been holding back to protect me. She knew someone was watching us. She knew she wasn’t safe.
And she didn’t tell me.
I swallow my frustration. How hard must it have been for her to keep this from me? Or was it difficult at all? Maybe this level of subterfuge comes easy to her—
Stop.
I fight the urge to crumple the photos in my hands. I’m hurt and confused, but that’s no excuse to be unfair to the woman I love. I deserve an explanation just as much as she deserves the chance to give me one. I have to be ready to listen. This can all make sense if I let it. I already have some of the pieces to this puzzle. Tess holds the rest. I need her to share. We don’t stand a fucking chance if she can’t trust me with something as big as this.
I glance back down at the photos. The feeling of violation sweeps over me again. My finger brushes over the grainy image of Tess in the kitchen. I’m between her legs, my body out of shot, hidden in shadow. She’s all alone, exposed to the lens—her breasts, the arch of her neck, the curve of her hip, the look of wild abandon on her face.
It feels like he stole something from her with the snap of this photo. He took something without asking. I want to beat him with his fucking camera. And then I want to find Troy Owens and beat him too. He’s the one that asked for this. He paid someone to do this to us. Why? Does he get off on these? Does he still think of Tess as his?
The thought makes my blood boil. I feel sick. I need to find Tess. If I’m feeling this way about it all, how must she feel? I need to comfort her.
I drop the photos down to the bed, turning my back on them, and head for the door. But I pause in my steps as Tess walks in, juggling a pair of empty moving boxes in her hands. Our eyes meet, and then she’s screaming.
“Ohmygod—Ryan!”
Her scream makes me jump.
She drops the moving boxes to her feet, her hands going to clutch at her chest. “Ryan, you scared the pee outta me,” she shrieks.
I feel breathless, my heart racing as I take her in at last. It’s only been ten fucking hours, but it may as well be ten years. “Tess,” I say softly, putting all my feeling into the word.
She stands there in her ratty T-shirt and a pair of leggings, her curly hair up in a high ponytail. She looks so casual, like we’re about to flop onto the couch and watch another episode of Sons, not pack all her shit to leave. She really meant for me to come home and find her gone? It’s an act of cruelty I wouldn’t have imagined her capable of.
That’s when it hits me: it wasn’t her idea. She’s acting on orders. Troy’s orders. Because he somehow threatened me. How? With the photos? What is he going to do with them? What do they prove other than he’s a fucking creeper who should be in jail?